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Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) observers present preliminary observations to the Salvadoran media.

March 9, 2015 -- TeleSUR English, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) has
won 86 of the 262 mayorships of El Salvador in March 1 elections,
including the capital San Salvador, according to preliminary reports,
TeleSUR English said on March 4.

The ruling FMLN also announced it won a legislative majority in the National Assembly and the Central American Parliament.

The FMLN said it would now govern areas covering more than 65% of the population, compared to 45% in the past.

FMLN Secretary-General Medardo Gonzalez told the Salvadoran people
his party would continue efforts in favour of the more vulnerable
sectors of society.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is yet to release the official
electoral results, but Gonzalez said the preliminary results were
accepted by “practically all the parties”.

The TSE said it might take at least a week to finalise the election
results. TSE president Julio Olivo said on March 4 that unidentified
persons or groups had sabotaged the transmission of results.

September 3, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Providing facts and analysis, and publicising and organising Latin
America solidarity activities in Australia, Green Left Weekly and Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has sought to
promote greater understanding and solidarity between the people of
Australia and Latin America.

We hope the supplement will help build stronger links and
solidarity
between the Spanish-speaking communities in Australia and all those
involved in the urgent struggles for the people and the planet. In the
words of Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez: “Time is short. If we don’t
change the world now, there may be no 22nd century.”

July
22, 2014 -- The new El Salvador government faces the challenge of deepening the
pro-majority changes that have occurred, while updating the historic
experiences of a fighting and conscious people seeking social
transformation, said contemporary critical thinker Marta Harnecker, in an
interview with weekly newspaper El Siglo
XXI.

March 22, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In the first round of El Salvador's 2014 presidential election the FMLN candidate Salvador Ceren had a clear win over the runner-up, Norman Quiroga of the right-wing ARENA party. However he fell just short of the 50%+ required to be declared president. With the smaller parties dropping out there was a run-off between Ceren and Quijano on Sunday, March 9. Here is video of the voting process and an interview by Warwick Fry with Juan Campos, who travelled from Australia as an official observer. The FMLN's Salvador Ceren was victorious, much to the great delight of tens of thousands of Salvadoreans (below).

February 6, 2014 -- Labor Notes -- On
a hot and breezeless day at the end of January, representatives from 83
unions across El Salvador gathered in the Casa Sindical (a shared union
hall) in San Salvador to greet a delegation of international election
observers. We had come to ensure that the presidential election would be
free of fraud, violence and intimidation.

The images and names of their fallen comrades loomed on the walls
behind them in black paint. Febe Elizabeth Velásquez. Juan Chacón. Ten
unionists were martyred in a 1989 bombing by right-wing death squads,
targeted because they were union leaders.

February 3, 2014 -- CISPES -- With over 99% of polling places reporting, the candidate for the
governing Farabundo Martí national Liberation Front (FMLN) party,
Salvador Sanchez Cerén won handily the first round of El Salvador’s 2014
presidential election, earning nearly 49% of the vote. He holds a ten-point lead over Norman Quijano of the Nationalist Republican Alliance
(ARENA), who placed second with 39%. Former president Tony Saca
(1999-2004) garnered just over 11% of the vote. The FMLN and ARENA will
head to a run-off on March 9.

According to the CISPES electoral observation mission, which included
delegates from the National Lawyers Guild and various US
universities, the electoral proceedings were calm and peaceful.

October 27, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Providing facts and analysis, and publicising and organising Latin
America solidarity activities in Australia, Green Left Weekly and Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has sought to
promote greater understanding and solidarity between the people of
Australia and Latin America.

We hope the supplement will help build stronger links and
solidarity
between the Spanish-speaking communities in Australia and all those
involved in the urgent struggles for the people and the planet. In the
words of Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez: “Time is short. If we don’t
change the world now, there may be no 22nd century.”

June 16, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Providing facts and analysis, and publicising and organising Latin
America solidarity activities in Australia, Green Left Weekly and Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has sought to
promote greater understanding and solidarity between the people of
Australia and Latin America.

During the years 1978-1983, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) of the
United States has been making sharp shifts in its policies, political
positions, methods of work and internal norms. These shifts reflect an
effort by the leadership of the SWP to develop an orientation in the
post anti-Vietnam war movement period. Some important steps forward
have been taken by the SWP. Two important shifts, which reflect
fundamentally positive steps, have been the decision to colonize
industry and to recognize the revolutionary proletarian character of the
Cuban Communist Party, the FSLN in Nicaragua, the FMLN in El Salvador
and the New Jewel Movement in Grenada.

Along with these positive steps, however, there has been a hardening
of increasingly sectarian positions which threaten to undermine the
positive aspects of the two points mentioned above. This document is a
review of the increasingly sectarian positions developed by the SWP in
the last five years. Why this is happening is beyond the scope of this
document, although it is clearly related to the years of isolation from
the broader workers' movement. The development of hardened sectarian
political views has occurred quite frequently in groups which have
developed within the world Trotskyist current. While the causes of the
sectarianism of the SWP are undoubtedly related to these broader
questions, this document takes up each political question at its face
value, independent of broader judgments.

RESOLUTION OF THE XXV ORDINARY FMLN NATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE INITIATIVE TO ESTABLISH THE `FIFTH (V) SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL'

This FMLN National Convention,

CONSIDERING:

(Sunday, December 13, 2009)

1. That the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is a political organisation that has the responsibility, recognised by popular majority and as a consequence of our long history of struggle, of constructing in El Salvador a society based on social justice; which is economically productive, environmentally sustainable and wherein all exercise and respect fundamental freedoms and inherent rights of the human being, as recognised in the Constitution of the Republic.

2. That the progressive and left-wing political and social movements, which are leading the struggles for democracy and social progress, are experiencing a period of growth and gain in various parts of the world, and particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean; proposing and winning solutions to the major problems confronting the world today.

November 27, 2009 -- Addressing delegates at the International Encounter of Left Parties held in Caracas, November 19-21, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said that with the capitalist crisis and threat of war risking the future of humanity, “the people are clamoring” for greater unity of those willing to fight for socialism.

Chavez used his November 20 speech to the conference, which involved delegates from 55 left groups from 31 countries, to call for a new international socialist organisation to unite left groups and social movements: “The time has come for us to organise the Fifth International.”

November 23, 2009 – Venezuelanalysis.com – Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez called
for the formation of a “Fifth International” of left parties and social
movements to confront the challenge posed by the global crisis of
capitalism. The president made the announcement during an international
conference of more than 50 left organisations from 31
countries held in Caracas over November 19-21.

“I assume responsibility before the world. I think it is time to
convene the Fifth International, and I dare to make the call, which I
think is a necessity. I dare to request that we create my proposal,”
Chavez said.

Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, June 3, 2009 -- On June 1, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Cerén were sworn in
as president and vice-president of El Salvador at the Feria
Internacional Convention Center in San Salvador. It was a magical day
for the Salvadoran people, social movement organisations, and the
leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which Funes and Sanchez Cerén represent.

May 31, 2009 -- El Salvador -- On Monday, June 1, 2009 El Salvador will turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country´s first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin America. Representing the Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) ), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, president and vice-president elect, will face a national assembly in which the FMLN is outnumbered by more than 2:1. Out of a total of 84 seats, the FMLN only have 35. This will make broad sweeping changes difficult, but not impossible, and may force Funes to use the power of the presidential veto as a bargaining chip. It is important that those of us observing from a distance understand the complicated environment within which the new government will be operating.

The new government represents a coalition of interests including the FMLN and its national grassroots system of committees, and a broad cross-section of civil society. More and more information is coming to light that despite the glowing picture painted by the outgoing right-wing ARENA party, the country is bankrupt -- the result of twenty years of failed economic and social policies, and rampant corruption by ARENA and its allies, the PDC and PCN. It is likely that the new government will discover the depth of the corruption and mismanagement after it assumes office.

By the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)

March 24, 2009 -- Starting at 7am on Sunday, March 15,
Salvadorans headed en masse to
the polls to cast their ballots for the future president; by 9:30pm Mauricio
Funes, presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
(FMLN), pronounced himself president-elect of El Salvador—the very first leftist
head of state in the country’s history.

February 26, 2009 -- Committee in Solidarity of the People of El Salvador (CISPES) -- Polls
on the March 15 presidential vote show the election will likely open a
new progressive chapter in El Salvador's long, violent history of war
and dictatorships with a victory by the left-wing FMLN, which is
promising to build a people-centred government. But the right is not
taking its impending defeat lightly; it has been orchestrating a
massive fear campaign and has worked feverishly to secure
corporate-driven development contracts before its rule is set to expire.

"An historical event is
underway in El Salvador. For the first time, a government especially
dedicated to the popular sectors is possible. The current government,
subjected to the interests of small groups, has shown their inability
to lead the country for the common good. A new government is born
precisely of the hope of citizens to break the pattern and install a
government that will be at the service of the entire Salvadoran
population."
—Program of Government, FMLN.

January 20, 2009 -- Amanda Peters was on the spot as an official observer, and as part of a delegation from CISPES
(Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). She spoke
with community radio's Latin Radicalas the first results started coming in, and gives
her nervous prognosis for the presidential round coming up on March 15.